Sentences of Youth
 |
Description
Book Introduction
"The youth I remember is a scene like that." A new look at Kim Yeon-su's "Sentences of Youth" Author Kim Yeon-su's prose collection, "Sentences of Youth," has been republished with revised content. Since its first publication in 2004, "Sentences of Youth" has been loved by countless readers, evoking warm sympathy from those in the prime of their youth and vague memories from those who have already passed their youth. The recollections of author Kim Yeon-su revealed in the book are poignant, the sentences describing the times are warm, and the poems and song lyrics quoted are incredibly accurate in describing youth. Youth is a time of uncertainty, but also a time of possibility when one can become anything. It is also a time when one's life is shaken by encounters with others and one's rigid world crumbles. The newly released revised edition of 『Sentences of Youth』 includes three new prose pieces by author Kim Yeon-su and some of the prose pieces included in 『Sentences of Youth+』 (Sentences of Youth Plus). Additionally, the sentences throughout the first edition were carefully refined. At some point, I was writing sentences exactly like I had written 20 years ago. Like an actor who uses method acting to understand the role. At that time, I was in my twenties and thirties. I was struggling to survive in this world, without any idea of how the world and I would change in 20 years. I thought back to myself back then and copied the sentences I wrote 20 years ago. As if two people's hands were overlapping each other. If we could hold hands like that, what story would I tell my current self from 20 years ago? _Page 22, from the “Preface to the Revised Edition” |
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
index
At the beginning of the revised edition - To the two eyes that will read this book for the first time
At the beginning of the first edition - a preface written in a poem and a few lines
I'm thirty-five years old
Even now, if you listen quietly to sad thoughts,
Is love a water that only flows downward?
The puffer fish in the river in April is not fat.
When I wake up tomorrow in loneliness
Where have all those people gone?
Eun is an elderly person
Did Sakongseo meet Noh Jin-kyung again?
Ten Days of Happiness
Do you know what you can't see?
Time passes and sorrow persists.
Every night I listen to that sound in front of the lamp
You and I in the Chinese sea
Sometimes I hear the sound of a string breaking
Youth sheds a petal or two like that
The crescent moon has already risen on the wisteria tree
I know it will just end when I forget, but I can't help it
Please don't do this and let's live well
If you truly save your spirit through study,
Look carefully towards the ger in front
Even if the frost-covered lotus leaves wrinkle along with their once blue light,
If you don't go through the darkness, you won't be able to escape it.
Plum leaves a sour taste and makes your teeth weak.
Like the beautiful ringing sound of a black cat
I think of you but I don't see you
Lonely, high and desolate
The orchid leaves bow their heads in the heavy dew.
Winter 1981, in my own strawberry field
When you're twenty, dreams! Always dreams!
So that I don't forget that this is what I wanted
What has enriched my heart is
I look at the cherry blossoms that don't wither as if they were soaked in honey.
No matter how dark it is, don't be the one who kicks a dog.
The wind blows, spring days are passing by
The end of the world, our last
I hope to see you again when the flowers fall
At the beginning of the first edition - a preface written in a poem and a few lines
I'm thirty-five years old
Even now, if you listen quietly to sad thoughts,
Is love a water that only flows downward?
The puffer fish in the river in April is not fat.
When I wake up tomorrow in loneliness
Where have all those people gone?
Eun is an elderly person
Did Sakongseo meet Noh Jin-kyung again?
Ten Days of Happiness
Do you know what you can't see?
Time passes and sorrow persists.
Every night I listen to that sound in front of the lamp
You and I in the Chinese sea
Sometimes I hear the sound of a string breaking
Youth sheds a petal or two like that
The crescent moon has already risen on the wisteria tree
I know it will just end when I forget, but I can't help it
Please don't do this and let's live well
If you truly save your spirit through study,
Look carefully towards the ger in front
Even if the frost-covered lotus leaves wrinkle along with their once blue light,
If you don't go through the darkness, you won't be able to escape it.
Plum leaves a sour taste and makes your teeth weak.
Like the beautiful ringing sound of a black cat
I think of you but I don't see you
Lonely, high and desolate
The orchid leaves bow their heads in the heavy dew.
Winter 1981, in my own strawberry field
When you're twenty, dreams! Always dreams!
So that I don't forget that this is what I wanted
What has enriched my heart is
I look at the cherry blossoms that don't wither as if they were soaked in honey.
No matter how dark it is, don't be the one who kicks a dog.
The wind blows, spring days are passing by
The end of the world, our last
I hope to see you again when the flowers fall
Detailed image
Into the book
Sometimes, when I sit quietly in loneliness and think about the past, I see people disappearing from my life one by one, like falling flower petals.
As childhood passes and we reach an age where we often look back on the old days, we finally realize how much space there is in life.
--- p.56
Wrinkles and marks are just natural extras that come with life, like the dead body of a cicada that fell into an alleyway in late summer, but I've been focusing too much on them for the past few years.
Now I understand.
It wasn't that the history books didn't have enough pages to record everything in detail.
Because these are wrinkles and marks that you don't need to worry about.
But I keep thinking about those things.
--- p.65
Why do we live? Why do we love? Because, in living and loving, we experience unforgettable things.
Even if a third-generation chaebol who resembles Moses offered me a billion dollars, or even if he erected a monument with my name engraved on it at the top of Namsan Mountain, I wouldn't trade those things.
Sometimes we are so happy that we cannot forget those things, that is why we live and love someone.
--- p.82
I love the night.
The night has a black face with a thousand eyes.
When you look at them from a high place, each of their eyes shines.
You are in each and every one of those lights.
You lonely ones, each one shaking from afar.
Suddenly, I wonder if the wind is blowing through your window.
But it is a flickering light because it is far away.
At one time we were so close that we could not feel even the slightest tremor… … .
--- p.100
That's the kind of scene I remember from my youth.
It's an ambiguous season, transitioning from winter to spring, and beyond the window, we see the lights of Bukaksan Skyway. We each have different reasons, think about different things, but we all sing Kim Kwang-seok's songs together.
--- p.123
So, when I broke up with that girl, my huge world completely collapsed.
Now, the sadness that was trapped in the window of my world was not enough.
Only then did I begin to open my eyes to the sorrow outside, to the sorrow of others.
I needed more sadness.
--- p.125
No matter how hard I tried to understand, it seemed like the day would never come when I could fully understand life.
--- p.136
Why does life change so quickly? Why did we end up breaking up at nineteen? Why does everything just get better after a while? Why does pain sometimes become sweet? The questions I want to ask are endless, but no one has the answers.
--- p.190
And then I realized.
The fact that I had already experienced everything I would experience in the future by the time I was twenty.
I met all those people and walked all those paths by the time I was twenty.
All that joy, all that sorrow, all that rapture, all that loneliness, when I was twenty.
Whenever I walk from Changdeokgung Palace to the Jongno 3-ga Theater, or whenever I accidentally watch a program about poet Ki Hyung-do on TV, or even whenever I drink a cappuccino, I am reminded of my twenties.
I apologize to the professors, but I've long since forgotten what we learned in liberal arts Korean class. But I can't forget where I walked with the person I met when I was twenty, what kind of coffee he liked to drink, or what movie we saw at which theater.
--- p.212
Only then did I realize that the landscape of this land where I live would, for some, fill the void left by someone who had left and never returned.
The scenery I once saw while walking alongside someone is the scenery of this land we live in, the winter, spring, summer, and fall that we will see again and again as we live, and that will remain even after we are gone.
As childhood passes and we reach an age where we often look back on the old days, we finally realize how much space there is in life.
--- p.56
Wrinkles and marks are just natural extras that come with life, like the dead body of a cicada that fell into an alleyway in late summer, but I've been focusing too much on them for the past few years.
Now I understand.
It wasn't that the history books didn't have enough pages to record everything in detail.
Because these are wrinkles and marks that you don't need to worry about.
But I keep thinking about those things.
--- p.65
Why do we live? Why do we love? Because, in living and loving, we experience unforgettable things.
Even if a third-generation chaebol who resembles Moses offered me a billion dollars, or even if he erected a monument with my name engraved on it at the top of Namsan Mountain, I wouldn't trade those things.
Sometimes we are so happy that we cannot forget those things, that is why we live and love someone.
--- p.82
I love the night.
The night has a black face with a thousand eyes.
When you look at them from a high place, each of their eyes shines.
You are in each and every one of those lights.
You lonely ones, each one shaking from afar.
Suddenly, I wonder if the wind is blowing through your window.
But it is a flickering light because it is far away.
At one time we were so close that we could not feel even the slightest tremor… … .
--- p.100
That's the kind of scene I remember from my youth.
It's an ambiguous season, transitioning from winter to spring, and beyond the window, we see the lights of Bukaksan Skyway. We each have different reasons, think about different things, but we all sing Kim Kwang-seok's songs together.
--- p.123
So, when I broke up with that girl, my huge world completely collapsed.
Now, the sadness that was trapped in the window of my world was not enough.
Only then did I begin to open my eyes to the sorrow outside, to the sorrow of others.
I needed more sadness.
--- p.125
No matter how hard I tried to understand, it seemed like the day would never come when I could fully understand life.
--- p.136
Why does life change so quickly? Why did we end up breaking up at nineteen? Why does everything just get better after a while? Why does pain sometimes become sweet? The questions I want to ask are endless, but no one has the answers.
--- p.190
And then I realized.
The fact that I had already experienced everything I would experience in the future by the time I was twenty.
I met all those people and walked all those paths by the time I was twenty.
All that joy, all that sorrow, all that rapture, all that loneliness, when I was twenty.
Whenever I walk from Changdeokgung Palace to the Jongno 3-ga Theater, or whenever I accidentally watch a program about poet Ki Hyung-do on TV, or even whenever I drink a cappuccino, I am reminded of my twenties.
I apologize to the professors, but I've long since forgotten what we learned in liberal arts Korean class. But I can't forget where I walked with the person I met when I was twenty, what kind of coffee he liked to drink, or what movie we saw at which theater.
--- p.212
Only then did I realize that the landscape of this land where I live would, for some, fill the void left by someone who had left and never returned.
The scenery I once saw while walking alongside someone is the scenery of this land we live in, the winter, spring, summer, and fall that we will see again and again as we live, and that will remain even after we are gone.
--- p.235
Publisher's Review
“If I had known I would live past thirty,
“When I was twenty, my attitude toward life must have been different.”
The "sentences" that fascinated and captivated author Kim Yeon-su.
"Sentences of Youth" is full of anecdotes from author Kim Yeon-su's youth.
But as you read, you realize that the author's personal stories are expanding into a universal story of youth.
This is because everyone has memories of their suffocating school days, of their world being shattered by a failed love affair, or of being absorbed in something they like and imagining a future related to it.
Author Kim Yeon-su uses a variety of 'sentences', from Chinese poetry and haiku to pop song lyrics, to recreate youth in a three-dimensional way.
Famous quotes from across the ages, along with the vivid writings of the authors who convey them, help us vividly picture the existential questions we all pondered in our youth, the anxieties about friendship, the infatuation with love—all things that could only be enjoyed in our youth.
Even though youth has gone by so quickly, its meaning still remains in my heart.
Even now, when I listen to Kim Kwang-seok's songs, my body aches.
Youth was like a landscape where the crescent moon had already risen above the wisteria trees, even though the sunset had not yet faded.
It came unexpectedly and then suddenly left, even though the light hadn't yet disappeared.
Page 128
The author confesses that “I experienced everything I would experience in the future when I was twenty.”
This is not something you learn in class, but something you experience by meeting and mingling with people.
I drank a lot of alcohol with friends in a shabby studio apartment in Jeongneung, and I even wrote a novel for myself on a computer.
As time passed, all the people I used to drink with disappeared, and I made my debut with the novel I wrote alone.
Now I am writing for a 'reader'.
Meanwhile, I passed through the middle of my youth.
The author realizes that those uncertain and opaque times may have been beautiful enough to make one want to return to them.
The age of twenty is a desperate and sensitive time, and it is also a time when many things are experienced 'for the first time'.
After that, you gradually become numb to many things.
Author Kim Yeon-su also went through a period of youth when it was difficult to predict the distant future, and became a bewildered person faced with the fact that life continues indefinitely even after the age of thirty.
So, I carefully look at the sentences that remind me of the past.
The next day, as I was driving down the hill in the moving truck, I finally realized that the time I spent on that hill had been spring for me.
When the flower season is over, you realize that the spring light has disappeared.
When the ten million pieces scatter and the fallen flowers run out, we will realize where we lived.
Youth passed away, shedding a petal or two.
I wish I could go back to that time if only I could revive the flowers that had already withered.
Page 117
Whether sick or beautiful,
The days of youth that we only realize after they've passed
Author Kim Yeon-su published the first edition of “Sentences of Youth” in her mid-thirties, a time when she felt like her youth was just passing by.
And now, in my fifties, I am writing a revised edition and reaching out to my old self once again.
Although the splendidly hot days are over, he cautiously confesses that he feels like he's now old enough to understand a little bit about why we live and what happiness is.
It's so sad that I now know things I could have lived without knowing.
And so spring passed, a year passed, our youth ended, and we became completely different people from who we once were.
Now I know that in the end, only those of us who were happy can forgive us.
Page 248
As long as we live, youth will be repeated, passed, and constantly ruminate on.
Perhaps because there are sentences that can remind us of painful and beautiful times, we can still walk on today, believing that life is worth living.
Reading the memories and sentences of youth conveyed by author Kim Yeon-su, I gain the strength to live a new life in a day that had become numb.
“When I was twenty, my attitude toward life must have been different.”
The "sentences" that fascinated and captivated author Kim Yeon-su.
"Sentences of Youth" is full of anecdotes from author Kim Yeon-su's youth.
But as you read, you realize that the author's personal stories are expanding into a universal story of youth.
This is because everyone has memories of their suffocating school days, of their world being shattered by a failed love affair, or of being absorbed in something they like and imagining a future related to it.
Author Kim Yeon-su uses a variety of 'sentences', from Chinese poetry and haiku to pop song lyrics, to recreate youth in a three-dimensional way.
Famous quotes from across the ages, along with the vivid writings of the authors who convey them, help us vividly picture the existential questions we all pondered in our youth, the anxieties about friendship, the infatuation with love—all things that could only be enjoyed in our youth.
Even though youth has gone by so quickly, its meaning still remains in my heart.
Even now, when I listen to Kim Kwang-seok's songs, my body aches.
Youth was like a landscape where the crescent moon had already risen above the wisteria trees, even though the sunset had not yet faded.
It came unexpectedly and then suddenly left, even though the light hadn't yet disappeared.
Page 128
The author confesses that “I experienced everything I would experience in the future when I was twenty.”
This is not something you learn in class, but something you experience by meeting and mingling with people.
I drank a lot of alcohol with friends in a shabby studio apartment in Jeongneung, and I even wrote a novel for myself on a computer.
As time passed, all the people I used to drink with disappeared, and I made my debut with the novel I wrote alone.
Now I am writing for a 'reader'.
Meanwhile, I passed through the middle of my youth.
The author realizes that those uncertain and opaque times may have been beautiful enough to make one want to return to them.
The age of twenty is a desperate and sensitive time, and it is also a time when many things are experienced 'for the first time'.
After that, you gradually become numb to many things.
Author Kim Yeon-su also went through a period of youth when it was difficult to predict the distant future, and became a bewildered person faced with the fact that life continues indefinitely even after the age of thirty.
So, I carefully look at the sentences that remind me of the past.
The next day, as I was driving down the hill in the moving truck, I finally realized that the time I spent on that hill had been spring for me.
When the flower season is over, you realize that the spring light has disappeared.
When the ten million pieces scatter and the fallen flowers run out, we will realize where we lived.
Youth passed away, shedding a petal or two.
I wish I could go back to that time if only I could revive the flowers that had already withered.
Page 117
Whether sick or beautiful,
The days of youth that we only realize after they've passed
Author Kim Yeon-su published the first edition of “Sentences of Youth” in her mid-thirties, a time when she felt like her youth was just passing by.
And now, in my fifties, I am writing a revised edition and reaching out to my old self once again.
Although the splendidly hot days are over, he cautiously confesses that he feels like he's now old enough to understand a little bit about why we live and what happiness is.
It's so sad that I now know things I could have lived without knowing.
And so spring passed, a year passed, our youth ended, and we became completely different people from who we once were.
Now I know that in the end, only those of us who were happy can forgive us.
Page 248
As long as we live, youth will be repeated, passed, and constantly ruminate on.
Perhaps because there are sentences that can remind us of painful and beautiful times, we can still walk on today, believing that life is worth living.
Reading the memories and sentences of youth conveyed by author Kim Yeon-su, I gain the strength to live a new life in a day that had become numb.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Publication date: July 20, 2022
- Page count, weight, size: 260 pages | 458g | 145*225*20mm
- ISBN13: 9788960907485
- ISBN10: 8960907480
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